I have been triggered today and I just really need a safe place to tell my story. Please no attacks. I am in pain.

This is very long, but I am praying that those of you who are able will still read it. It takes a LOT for me to be able to share this today. I have spent the better part of my day in tears and reliving some terrible memories. Thanks to the support of some special people (you know who you are), I am ready to share this. I really need to be heard, and I really need to be loved right now. Please read and respond if you can…

I came home from school to see my mom and siblings crying, and my dad yelling. I didn't know what about. he told me to sit down because my mother had something to tell me. she cried as she told us that she had an affair several years ago, but it was over now. my dad kept interjecting and yelling things about her or whatever. and then he yelled and told us that the guy was a child molester and was currently in prison for it. we just cried and cried and cried. i can't remember everything that was said, but it was a while. then he said to say goodbye to her because he was taking her away and we wouldnt' see her again. first he said he was going to take her to the prison so she could be with this other guy. then he said he was going to take her to my grandparents. i believed in my mind he was going to take her somewhere and kill her. his guns were in the truck. we (siblings and me) chased them to the truck, begging him not to take her. we were so scared. we cried so hard. i felt so helpless

So my dad left with my mom, and his guns were in the truck, and I thought he would kill her. We cried and panicked, and then about a half hour later, they came back home. My mom ran in the house first and told us to get and hide his guns. We locked them up in David's room. I was supposed to go to work that night, was trying to find my work uniform in the laundry room when my dad cornered me and started screaming 2 inches from my face "Do you want her here? She doesn't care about you. She didn't just do this to me. She did it to all of us. she doesn't care about this family. She wasn't thinking of us when she did this. Do you think she was thinking about you?!" I wouldn't answer him, I just cried. He screamed until I admitted that I did want her to stay. Then he screamed about that.

Then, he went for his guns and realized they were gone. He screamed and yelled at us to give them to him, and we refused. I tried to stand between him and the door to the room the guns were in. But he was so big. And I was so scared. He threatened us. I asked him to promise he would not do anything stupid and he said he wouldn't promise but that I'd better give him the guns. We gave him the guns.

He took the guns and locked himself in his room. We stood outside the door and begged him not to kill himself. He was in there for a half-hour with a gun to his head, trying to decide. I really believed he would decide to pull the trigger.

I was so scared!

After that of course, the marriage went to hell. He talked daily about what a ***** my mother was. It hurt so much. My mom just took it, because she thought she deserved it. He told us there were more affairs than that one, and that my mom was a lying slut. My mom firmly said over and over again that this was the only affair.

In my life, I had always had this good guy bad guy scenario where I believed my dad was bad and my mom was my hero. We were very close, my mom and I. I turned to her for everything. She was my best friend. I didn't believe she was capable of lying or betraying any of us. I believed my dad was a liar and an abuser. It was very black and white in my mind. It had to be, otherwise I had no safe place. When I found out about my mom's affair, I felt I had no safe place. The world was not black and white anymore. Nobody in my life could be trusted if my mom couldn't. It was DEVASTATING. I can't even tell you how much it hurt.

I was presented with these two people telling entirely different stories, and I could not trust either one. Both had motives. Both had lied to me, to eachother, to our family.

I have spent the past five years trying desperately to repair my relationship with my mother. It is one of the hardest things I have ever had to face in my life.

She broke my heart. It hurt so much. I still haven't figured out how to have a loving relationship with her, because I feel so betrayed and so hurt. I keep trying, because I love my mom so much. She was my whole world growing up. I feel I have lost her, at least as I thought she was. It hurts SO MUCH.

I wrote this poem a while later, so a couple years ago, to deal with my feelings. It's based on a story about the "Morning Star" that my dad used to tell me when I was a kid (you can read it on my website if you want the background i'll give you the link)

-Morning Star-

Morning star, go back to sleep
Your mother won't be found
She made a promise she didn't keep

You're aching morning star,
with her infidelity
It's seeping out of you,
unbearably visible
in satin tears.

Alone,
You're searching, morning star
So bright and desperate
With your tragic innocence,
A child's once unwavering trust

You love your mother morning star
But perhaps you never knew her

You will never find
the woman that you're looking for.

Angela